Ellen read a lovely and heartbreaking essay at our Beaux Arts Party last week. I asked her to send along the whole piece so everyone out there in the blogosphere can enjoy it.
Dear Kiki:
As I sit on this rickety, metal-spined office chair trying to get comfortable so I can write, you, whom I have known and loved without the tiniest break since the day I met you, are struggling to find just a few pain-free moments from your wheelchair in a rehabilitation hospital four states away.
I ache to see you. To put my arms around you. To hand-deliver flowers and sushi. To massage your feet. To sit beside you and listen to whatever you want to say, or not.
I want to clean your house. Take your boys to the movies.
Oh the things we are drawn to do out of friendship, deep and long. For the ones we met on the seventh grade camping trip when it rained all weekend, forcing us to reposition our damp sleeping bags in just the right spot under a dripping nylon tarp; the sticky moisture attaching us to one another and bonding us over shared discomfort.
Just like now. Uncomfortable.
For the past few weeks, for as long as you’ve been sick, you have been declining my offers to board a plane and come to your side. I make reservations and then I break them. You say it’s all you can do to get through your rehabilitation and spend time with your boys, sisters, mother and husband. You’ve been through hell and only now are beginning to recover some strength. You say you need time to process and that you will call me when you are ready.
Come later, you say, when I’ll need you more.
I understand, of course. It makes sense. But since you got sick, nothing is staying sensible for very long. This came over you suddenly and turned your life upside down - what’s logical about that? I hate that I can’t do anything for you. Every muscle in my body wants to act. Isn’t through our actions that we show love?
I want to bake. Weed your garden. Make a casserole (even though I never made one before.)
Other than praying, which offers some solace and temporary calm, as your heartbroken, out-of-town friend, what can I do with all of my doing energy?
I send cards and compact discs, poetic verses and comedy DVDs, and a turquoise cashmere shawl.
And for a day or two, it feels like something.
A few weeks into this out-of-state but so in-my-sights crisis, on a whim, while in a flower shop where I consider sending you flowers, I bring home an orchid.
It is, in every respect, uncharacteristic. You know I’m not gifted with plants. That’s your gift. I have never bought an orchid, nor has anyone given me one (as this is known about me.). It’s so delicate. Intimidating. And, as I soon learn, so high maintenance. It’s purple and fuchsia – two-thirds bloomed – and, absolutely stunning. The shop owner tells me to give it plenty of water, which is good because too much water is how I’ve been killing plants my whole non-plant nurturing life.
I water it as advised and place it by the sunniest window in the house. Later, I move it to another spot. I position it on surfaces where it can show off it’s purple- and-fuchsia-ness, it’s many-gestured self. It’s more work than I ever have put into a houseplant, but it has my heart. I tell it how beautiful it is; it bats its blossoms back at me; it positively prances. The orchid is flourishing under my care and love, the dual package I’ve been aching to give to you. I’m slathering it all on the orchid. And it’s beginning to show. On us both.
You know how it must be. You, the landscape architect, with the gift of knowing how to take living things and installing them so that they thrive in a new setting.
Like I think I’ve done with this orchid.
Patience, I tell myself. Patience for not being able to do for you in tangible or traditional ways. Patience in the knowledge that when you leave the hospital and retransplant yourself into your home, that I will, eventually, be there to help nourish you, like a hothouse flower unfurling itself in the sun.
Love,
Keek
This essay was adapted from “The Orchid” published in Views from the Home Office Window by Ellen Blum Barish. (Adams Street Publishing, 2007)
Visit Ellen’s monthly blog Personal Space: Out of My Mind and Onto the Page
Holly Scottis a freelance writer and humorist. Originally from Dallas, Texas she now resides in Chicago where she is a member of StoryStudio Chicago, and the Chicago Writer’s Association as well as The Writers Center. She enjoys writing humorous short stories and essays based on life experiences and observations that readers can relate to in their day to day lives.
Meeting Notes
Big Pharma probably has a pill for this. Something I could swallow right now that would help me mentally check back into this meeting. Of course it would probably make my hair fall out, my tongue swell and eliminate my sex drive. On the other hand, it’s probably best to lose my sex drive if I’m bald and can’t speak because my 
tongue is three times it’s normal size.
But back to this meeting. What a colossal waste of my time. Two hours so far, in a room full of people discussing subjects I care absolutely nothing about. Nothing. Software development, US Customs requirements, client expectations. I have to admit I am genuinely disinterested.
Hi, I’m Bridget Shaw. I manage a software development company specializing in US Customs brokerage. Every day, (well almost every day- I seem to max out at four days per week) I come to this office and pretend to give a damn. I’ve been doing this for ten years. Ok. Not true. I only started not giving a damn about 5 months ago.
Do you have feelings of hopelessness or helplessness, loss of interest in daily activities, decreased ability to concentrate?. If so, Zoloft might be right for you. Tell your doctor if….
I don’t think I’m depressed though. I think I’m just keenly aware that there must be something more meaningful to do with a life than posture for position on the corporate ladder. Then again, thinking about that is kind of depressing. How much better it must be to be blissfully unaware of anything real. Alcohol helps there. Makes me blissfully unaware.
But I digress. Right now I have about ten seemingly important (by society’s standards) tasks on my plate. They’ve been on my plate so long they’re growing mold. Divide them roughly in half between personal and professional tasks. One of those tasks is “create a To-Do list”. This diatribe actually started as a to-do list but I lost focus and it quickly became a diary of real-time irrational thoughts. Actually, it started out as meeting notes illustrated with my favorite graphic doodles, morphed in to a to-do list, and then became a diary of real-time irrational thoughts.
Are you easily distracted? Have a hard time finishing tasks? Find yourself daydreaming? Consider yourself an underachiever? If so, ask your doctor about Concerta…..
Focus. So today, I’m sitting in this meeting and thinking, “What if I walk out of this room right now, keep walking, exit this building, get in my car ,and start driving west?” West because it’s warmer and my car would never make it in a cold climate. I’m worried it won’t survive this Chicago winter as it is. But who am I kidding? It wouldn’t make it 200 miles in the mildest of climates on the smoothest of roads. I’d have to get a tune up, an oil change and new tires. Which completely stalls my fantasy of impulsively running away to California. I’d have to create a to-do list just to leave in a reliable get away car. And given that this diary of real-time irrational thoughts was briefly a to-do list….. well… I could take a bus. If I take a bus then I can check off “oil change, tune-up and new tires” from my to-do list. (Mentally.)
Not a bus. Too much to sort out ahead of time. Find schedules, buy tickets, connections, then you’re looking for a cab to get to a motel. Not that I have any real experience with busses. I imagine they are much like trains only running alongside cars rather than above them. And I’ve had no luck with trains. I live a half block from the train station and can’t successfully get from point A to point B without detouring to points C and D somewhere in the middle. I either read the schedule wrong, or miss my stop, or forget to have cash for the ticket. I’m not sure what else the CTA needs to do to prepare me to use the public transit system but I feel completely inadequate when surrounded by seasoned commuters. Plus, there is nothing like sitting on a train watching out the window as the landscape changes to make me forget about my destination. The temptation to get off the train and step into a completely new place pulls on me like a gravitational force. Next thing I know, I’m late for an appointment and coughing up cab fare so I can back track to my original destination.
Buses and Trains are out.
I will have to escape in a car. I could steal my boyfriend’s car. He doesn’t use it anyway since he got his second DUI and lost his license. I mean it’s been two years now. I don’t think he’s planning on getting his license reinstated (or finding a job for that matter) anytime soon. And I could just leave him my car for emergencies. Perhaps I’ll just ask if I can borrow. No reason the getaway car has to be stolen. Why add real fugitive stress to my escape from reality? Another plus: it’s an SUV. Very conducive to packing up and driving halfway across the country. This might be an omen. If I was seeing a guy with a job and a license, I’d be stuck in the Corporate American Rat Race taking meeting notes forever. But as luck would have it, I’m on my way to escaping to California in a reliable, barely driven SUV with new tires.
Funny how things work out.
Written by Spring Fornell, a StoryStudio student who recently attended our In-Town Retreat.
Oktoberfest
Travel opens you. It pushes you to experience life beyond your comfort level and expands your boundaries of understanding. My husband and I took a year to see all that we could, only to find we have not seen enough.
“Come on honey let’s go. It’s Monday night it won’t be that crowded.” Yeah right, seven million people are showing up over a three-week period. I don’t think Monday night will be less crowded. We had just spent a long nine hours on a train through the Bavarian Alps. I was not in the mood to check out the party scene at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. Although my feet were dragging and I really just wanted dinner, I made the effort to interpret the subway map and get us there.
The funny thing about parties, is that at a really good one it is impossible not to have a great time. This is the quintessential harvest party. Why do they call it Oktoberfest when two of the three weeks are in September? Oktoberfest means the “festival of the harvest” in Bavarian. Besides, the weather is better in September.
There are several Oktoberfest celebrations throughout the world. Munich’s is the original, the largest, and the best. Oktoberfest is the three-week long celebration in honor of King Ludwig’s marriage in 1810. The first wedding party lasted three days and they have been celebrating every year ever since in the same exact spot. This is the way Thanksgiving should be done.
The place is reminiscent of a very large fair ground and carnival. There are carnival rides, roasted nuts, and rigged games with stuffed animal prizes. Intermixed in all this, are, what they call, beer tents. If you can call a wooden structure that holds 100,000 people a tent. There is a live band in all of them and lots of beer. The beer is sold by the liter and pretzels by the meter. The beer is actually really good and I don’t like beer. The beer for Oktoberfest is only made during Oktoberfest. It is the same color as Budweiser, but tastes nothing like it. The “sweet beer” is smooth, rich, has no after taste and doesn’t leave you with regrets in the morning.
One bite into my first real bratwurst and I was never going to leave. It had the perfect casing that popped with the juices escaping down your chin. The firm meat, hot and falling apart, is as tender as it is supposed to be. Not the mealy ground to a paste, packed in plastic of the boiled microwave ones found in U.S. fill-up stations. I am sure the brat came in a bun but the meat was so good I can’t remember the bread. As soon as I finished it I looked for another but decided to try the beer instead.
For all the people, it was easy to get around. We found a table in a beer garden and asked to sit. The youngsters immediately started talking and asking questions. I finally just said, “I don’t understand you.” This was not a problem, they started the whole conversation over in English. The locals were more than happy to fill us in on all the local customs and protocol for Oktoberfest. The basic rule: have a good time, singing is required, and dancing on tables is allowed. Don’t worry if you can’t carry a tune or keep the beat, neither can your new best friend next to you and no one is paying attention anyway. It turns out that one of them was celebrating her 16th birthday and the other two would be 16 next month. She had been celebrating her birthday at Oktoberfest since she was two years old. They ordered beer for us and Keith lit their cigarettes. When it was explained to them that in the U.S. he would be put in jail for this, they simply ask ‘Why.” Being nice is just something that is done. It is not a jail worthy offense. It was almost ten pm so they ordered one more round (a liter each) before heading home. After all, they had school the next day.
Also at our table, was the self-proclaimed Irish drinking team. I have been shamed by the drinking prowess of many an Irish person over the years. These gents were doing their best but when the dancing started their vertical impairment kept them from joining in. One started the “Y” for “YMCA” but toppled into the other man who was having difficulty forming a “C.” This went on through the first verse but with better judgment they sat out the second.
I don’t normally like beer and my husband doesn’t drink. So naturally the biggest beer party on the planet became the favorite highlight of the year. There is truly nothing more mouth dropping than walking into a “tent” and seeing 100,000 Germans in Bavarian Lederhosen dancing on plank picnic tables to the YMCA. I wish I could have taken a picture. No words can actually describe that moment in time. We stood in the two-story tent, mouths open, turning in a 360 degree, in a total flabbergasted state. Germans, proud of their heritage, celebrating an event steeped in history for hundreds of years, dancing to the Village People. Not a light foot among them.
We slept surprisingly well with no adverse affects. For lunch we headed to an all you can eat sushi place, the kids had told us about the night before. We are in Germany so why not have sushi? The sushi is on individual plates and you pick the one you want off the conveyer belt as it passes by. I ate so much I thought I was going to have problems. After naps, we headed back to Oktoberfest. It was a 10-minute wait to get a table in one of the beer gardens. Neither one of us was hungry so we got our beer and a Bavarian cheese tray. We sat for a while and then a couple of guys sat down at our table speaking English. It turns out that not only are they Western Students, but they live in our neighborhood. We travel 10,000 miles all the way to Germany only to meet people from down the block of Kalamazoo. They assured us our house was still standing. We had a blast and after two more rounds we headed back to the hotel.
In retrospect, I realized that few countries don’t play YMCA, I figured out the subway system in German, and was totally comfortable striking up a conversation with perfect strangers. What will I be able to do next?
Facts About Bavaria, Germany:
• Every person drinks 240L of beer a year. This includes babies born in December.
• There is no point in trying to keep up. You will lose.
Facts for Oktoberfest
• 14 main beer tents hold about 80,000 to 100,000 each. There are lot of smaller ones.
• 980 toilets.
• 9.8 million liters of beer drank last year – they are trying for 10 million this year.
• You can only get a beer while sitting. Doesn’t seem to matter where you are sitting as long as you are sitting.
• You drink beer while standing.
• The food is great, comes in American size portions, & dripping in either grease or beer.
• 51,488 bottles of water and lemonade and 3386 cups of coffee.
• Did I mention 980 toilets?
Enjoy this photo from Chicago photographer and web designer Harvey Tillis:
You can find Harvey at:
www.tillis.com/portfolios and www.tillisweb.com
Written by Julia Sherman
On the bottom of the sea, in the coastal waters, live the soft corrals, small jellyfish, lively crabs, lobsters, and different species of colorful, beautiful fish. It’s marvelous. It’s stunning. It’s like an underwater wonderland that seems to never end. And that’s why all people love to go snorkeling. Or at least that’s what the advertisement said.
It is August 2000. We are on our summer college vacation in Cancun and the four of us, dressed in our swimming suits, have walked into our first snorkeling session. There is already a small group of people gathered on the silky, smooth, white beach, their tanned bodies glistening under the hot, burning sun of Mexico.
We’re newbies but not to swimming. The instructor seems nice and friendly. (All of this is emphasized by the big smile of his face and the energetic movements of his hands). He is probably used to teaching all levels. Everything is with us, of course. Sunblock Lotion SPF 45. Water bottles. The rented gear: life jackets and snorkeling masks. We are ready to go, but the instructor keeps on talking.
Two of our friends’ come over and stand behind him, I stand behind them, and my boyfriend stands besides me. We are in a fight. He slowly turns his head to me, hands on his hips, and then we both begin to make hideous faces.
His big, brown eyes widen and then narrow into slits. His thin lips curl and his teeth stick out so that his face takes on the expression of a witch. I roll my pupils to the left corner of my sockets, poke my tongue slightly out, stick out my jaw and settle into an image that is half idiot, half monkey. Our faces represent “what we think of each other.”
“Were there any incidents with the sharks?” someone asks from the crowd. That sudden question causes me immediately to swallow hard and turn my head.
“Sharks,” says instructor, “are rare sightings around here. But yes, there are sharks. But you’d be lucky if you see one. Very lucky. In fact, in all of my experience, here in Cancun, I have only come across one type. That is the nurse shark. But nothing to worry about folks, they’re friendly and passive fellows. Usually harmless to humans. Unless provoked, of course. So if you see them, keep calm, and if necessary, move slowly out of the water. Follow my instructions and you’ll be fine. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, everyone that’s ready to snorkel, get in the boat!”
“See you there,” my boyfriend mumbles angrily. Then he takes a few steps towards the boat that is waiting at the quiet shore for us.
There it is. It is right in front of me. Foamy, smooth waves rolling onto the sandy beach, shady palm trees, clear sky with white clouds, and the fact that we are both here. The perfect vacation I believed that was going to bring us closer together.
“Come on young lady,” instructor runs up to me from the boat, leaving behind a trail of wet steps. “Did I scare you off with the sharks? Don’t be afraid to lift your wings. Approach each moment as if there is no shadow of risky failure waiting at the end of it.”
It is the only memory I have of ever getting close to going snorkeling.
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